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NYC Criticized for Failing to Evacuate Prisoners at Rikers Island Ahead of Hurricane

Even though Hurricane Irene prompted a series of extraordinary measures in New York City — a complete shutdown of the public transit system and mass evacuations on an unprecedented scale — officials did not take any steps to evacuate some 12,000 prisoners held in a city jail on Rikers Island. According to the New York City Department of Corrections website, more than three-quarters of Rikers Island’s 400 acres are built on landfill, which is generally thought to be more vulnerable to natural disasters. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said prisoners there were not in any danger, but human rights organizations condemned the city’s decision. Today also marks the sixth anniversary of another massive storm and a decision not to evacuate prisoners. It was August 29, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina led to the flooding of New Orleans, and prisoners in city and parish jails were left to fend for themselves. We speak with James Ridgeway, a reporter for Mother Jones magazine and founder and co-editor of Solitary Watch, a website that tracks solitary confinement and torture in American prisons. [includes rush transcript]

Jury Still Out on New Orleans Police Accused of Shooting Unarmed Katrina Survivors on Danziger Bridge

This week federal prosecutors in New Orleans finished presenting their case against police officers involved in the infamous Danziger Bridge shooting in the days after Hurricane Katrina. Four police officers are charged with shooting six unarmed civilians, killing two. A fifth officer is accused of helping them cover up their crimes. On Wednesday, the trial culminated in final arguments, leaving the case in a jury’s hands. A verdict could come as early as today.* We are joined in New Orleans by independent journalist Jordan Flaherty, who has been in the courtroom following the case, and Norris Henderson, a longtime community organizer and former co-director of Safe Streets/Strong Communities, a group that played a key role in helping the families of the victims in this case come forward to seek justice. "At the closing statement, one of the most moving moments was Bobbi Bernstein, the federal prosecutor, said, 'The real heroes are these families who continued struggling against a justice system that had failed them for all these years.'" says Flaherty.

*UPDATE: The five New Orleans police officers have been convicted in the deaths of two people and the injuring of four others on the Danziger Bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

"The Big Uneasy"–In New Doc, Harry Shearer Makes the Case that Katrina Was an Unnatural Disaster

On the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a new documentary, The Big Uneasy, argues that the destruction of New Orleans was an unnatural disaster and how it could have been prevented. We speak with the filmmaker: actor and satirist Harry Shearer. [includes rush transcript]

Remembering Hurricane Katrina: Voices from the Storm

This Sunday marked the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Early on the morning of August 29th, 2005, the storm slammed into the Gulf Coast, just south of New Orleans. It ravaged the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and left over 1,800 people dead. Eighty percent of the city of New Orleans was under water after the levees failed. We go back to 2005 to air some of the voices from New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm. [includes rush transcript]

Community & Resistance After Katrina: Jordan Flaherty and Tracie Washington on the Fight to Save New Orleans

President Obama visited New Orleans on Sunday and praised the recovery of the city and the resilience of its people five years after Hurricane Katrina. We talk to lifelong New Orleans resident and civil rights attorney, Tracie Washington, and Jordan Flaherty, a community organizer and author of Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six. [includes rush transcript]

Displaced New Orleans Poet Sunni Patterson: I Will Be a "Cultural Ambassador to Bring a Light to Every Injustice"

We go to New Orleans to speak with poet and performer Sunni Patterson. She’s from the Lower Ninth Ward, but like thousands of the city’s residents has been forced to live outside and is now based in Houston, Texas. [includes rush transcript]

EXCLUSIVE...Zeitoun: How a Hero in New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina Was Arrested, Labeled a Terrorist and Imprisoned

Today, a personal story of a national tragedy. Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian-born New Orleans building contractor, stayed in the city while his wife and children left to Baton Rouge. He paddled the flooded streets in his canoe and helped rescue many of his stranded neighbors. Days later, armed police and National Guardsmen arrested him and accused him of being a terrorist. He was held for nearly a month, most of which he was not allowed to call his wife, Kathy. Today, in a rare broadcast interview, Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun join us to tell their story, along with the man who chronicles it in the book Zeitoun, Dave Eggers. [includes rush transcript]

Swimming Upstream: Eve Ensler Marks Fifth Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with Performances of New Play

The award-winning playwright Eve Ensler plans to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina by staging performances of her new work Swimming Upstream in New Orleans and New York City. The piece was written by sixteen women from New Orleans who describe surviving the flood and living through the aftermath of the storm, which permanently changed their city and many of their lives. [includes rush transcript]

Prosecutors Charge White Man for Racially Motivated Shooting in Post-Katrina New Orleans

Nearly five years after Hurricane Katrina, federal prosecutors have charged a white man with federal hate crimes for his role in the racially motivated shooting of three black men in the aftermath of the storm. The five-count indictment accuses Roland Bourgeois of plotting to defend his Algiers Point neighborhood in New Orleans from "outsiders" including African Americans and shooting and seriously wounding three men who were walking toward a temporary evacuation center. [includes rush transcript]

Nearly 5 Years After Katrina, African American Fishing Community in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish Faces New Struggle in Oil Spill Devastation and BP Obstruction

Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat visits the town of Phoenix, Louisiana on the east bank of Plaquemines Parish, an area that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She speaks to Reverend Tyronne Edwards, a pastor and longtime community activist who spearheaded efforts to rebuild the largely African American fishing community after Katrina. In the aftermath of the BP oil spill disaster, Rev. Edwards is at the forefront of getting Washington, DC to pay attention to the needs of his community, whom he calls the "forgotten people" of Plaquemines Parish. [includes rush transcript]